Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand (28 March 1862-7 March 1932) was Prime Minister of France from 24 July 1909 to 2 March 1911 (succeeding Georges Clemenceau and preceding Ernest Monis), from 21 January to 22 March 1913 (succeeding Raymond Poincare and preceding Louis Barthou), from 29 October 1915 to 20 March 1917 (from Rene Viviani and preceding Alexandre Ribot), from 16 January 1921 (succeeding Georges Leygues and preceding Raymond Poincare), from 28 November 1925 to 20 July 1926 (succeeding Paul Painleve and preceding Edouard Herriot), and from 29 July to 2 November 1929 (succeeding Raymond Poincare and preceding Andre Tardieu). He was a member of the Republican-Socialist Party and SFIO.

Biography
Aristide Briand was born in Nantes, France on 28 March 1862, and he worked alongside Jean Jaures as a socialist journalist. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1902 as a deputy for the SFIO, and he joined the radical government as Minister of Public Instruction and Worship in 1906. He was responsible for the introduction of sweeping anticlerical measures, but he would betray his formal socialist beliefs when he succeeded Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister; he broke a railway strike in 1910. Braind was a member of most governments from 1906 to 1932, and he was best remembered as the driving force behind French foreign policy from 1920 to 1932, seeking to achieve disarmament and European stability through a system of collective security; he needed to establish friendly relations with the German Empire for this plan to work. Both Briand and his German colleague Gustav Streseman were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, and he was also the moving spirit behind the anti-war Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928.